Closure
by tundraeternal
Summary: 9th DoctorRose Tyler. Ten years after Rose's first adventure with the Doctor, she's on her own and trying to forget him. But a Time Lord can show up anywhere, and anywhen, and has a knack for landing just where he's needed. A WIP.
1. Remembrance

Disclaimer: I own nothing from the Doctor Who universe, and i am making no money off of anyone else's intellectual property.

"Closure"

Chapter 1: Remembrance

o-o-o-o-o-o-

Rose is sitting in a pub, drinking something blue out of an oddly thick glass. She knows she's somewhere in the Rigel system, maybe Rigella itself, but she figures it doesn't much matter just now. She's thinking, as she always thinks when she's had a few pints, about the past. About her past. It's been near eight years since she left the Doctor.

Nine years since her Doctor left her.

"Regeneration. That's a kicker," she thinks bitterly, as she's thought so many times before, "bastard was too alien to die like a normal person and give me some peace." She slouches against the bar and shuts her eyes.

She'd stayed with him for a whole year after she'd lost him. She'd kept searching this new man, hoping for traces of her Doctor. She would watch him out the corner of her eye as he worked on the TARDIS, watching the twist of his head or his way of tossing that stupid sonic screwdriver, desperate for a movement that would prove to her that her Doctor was alive somehow in this new incarnation. She would grab his hand as they ran, towards safety or towards adventure, but it was never the same. It didn't fit. This hand was too soft, too small. The man was The Doctor, the last of the Time Lords, but he wasn't the man she'd known. For twelve months she'd tried, holding onto a ghost, before she'd finally jumped ship to try starting her life over. Her Doctor was dead, but she couldn't bury him, and trying to recreate their life together had been killing her.

"Shove off, mate," she growls as an enormous lizard with purple skin tries to jostle her for a seat near the bar. Funny how quickly you get used to things like that. Even alien becomes mundane, eventually.

No, it hadn't been a complete waste, that year with the new Doctor. She'd learned loads about Travelling. Learned about time, and about the Universe, and how to keep herself out of trouble during a minor interplanetary war as well as she could on the London streets. She'd seen magnificent things, and fought for her life, and been to planets that'd been dead for thousands of years before she was born, and met a whole rainbow of people. She'd actually learned to call them 'people'. Her Doctor had always ribbed her about that.

When she'd finally decided to leave, once and for all, the Doctor had offered to take her home. It had been tempting, she had to admit. It would've been so good to see her mum again. To just let herself fall back into the rhythm of a normal, ordinary life on Earth. But a woman who's spent a third of her life exploring the universe has a hard time fitting in on a backward ape planet. Even if it's her backward ape planet. So she'd told him to leave her wherever it suited. He'd shrugged and left her at their next stop, with a group of humanoid colonists who were going to try to colonize one of the sentient planets of Alpha-Quadiscant 3.

She shifts in her seat as one of the purple lizard's three tails begins to get a little too chummy with her leg. Bloody Reptilicants can never keep their body parts to themselves.

The new Doctor been fond of her, of course. She was a quick learner, and an extra pair of hands was always a help in the TARDIS. But she knew he wasn't sad to see her go. She'd looked into his eyes as they'd said goodbye. They were sweet brown eyes, but there was no fire in them. That had made it easier.

And so for eight years she's been drifting, helping out here and there, catching rides from place to place. She knows by now which species to avoid, and which are safe to talk to in a pub, and which will be quite friendly as long as you remember to always speak with your voice pitched twice as high as usual. She gets by, she knows, and she always will. She's like her Doctor that way, she's intelligent, and she's practical, and she can survive.

But she still misses him. She can't help it. Almost every day she thinks of him, when some little thing reminds her. She misses his deep-set gray eyes, the way they used to burn straight through her when he looked at her the way he did, and the way she could always tell what he was thinking. And she misses the manic grin that used to flash across his face in the most unlikely of situations, as they were facing certain death at the hands of the Inquisition, or having a first-class row in the control room of the TARDIS. Their rows had never amounted to anything, though. The angrier they'd gotten, the more helplessly they'd ended up laughing about it when their anger was spent. She misses the smell of his old leather jacket. He'd worn it everywhere, no matter what the local fashion, no matter whether she was wearing her old jeans, or a color-changing kimono with a headdress that looked like it was made of paper airplanes. And no one had ever questioned him about it. Somehow his force of personality had made everything alright. He could've managed to make anyone comfortable with him, when he'd been feeling friendly. And he usually had been.

"I thought i told you to watch it!" Rose says angrily as she feels something brush her thigh.

"Sorry, but it's a bit crowded!"

The voice is so comfortable, so familiar, that it barely registers. Then slowly she turns around to see a pair of gray eyes, and an old leather jacket, and suddenly the alcohol hits her, hard, and the gray and the leather blur as she slides to the floor.

o-o-o-o-o-o-


	2. Rediscovery

"Closure"

Chapter 2: Rediscovery

o-o-o-o-o-o-

He comes haltingly through the door of the TARDIS into the sticky night of a nameless planet in an unguessable time, and he starts to walk, covering ground with long, impatient strides. He's just been to hell and back. He hardly knows where he is, let alone where he's going. It's the first time in days, or is it weeks, that he's even stepped outside the TARDIS. The War has destroyed his world, destroyed thousands of worlds. It's reshaped and remapped the entire universe, and nothing is certain anymore. How can he travel now, with the shadow of such destruction always hanging just out of sight, just around the corner? How can he travel with the threat that at any time he could land just round that corner, and see some ravaged galaxy as it was never meant to be?

But how can he stay put, cowering in the safety of a machine, when he is now the Last of the Time Lords? All his life he's been a renegade, a rebel, a black sheep. And now it's on his shoulders to be the last scion of a race. The pressure of that role is almost worse than the pain of the war. His shoulders slump against the responsibility and the guilt. Maybe if he hadn't been such a rebel, maybe he could've done something more. He should have seen the signs. He should have tried harder. He should have been able to protect them all. But he'd been too damn cocky. Too preoccupied with his missions of exploration, and of mercy. He should've listened when they told him not to interfere. Damn!

He's walking the dark streets with angry steps, hardly aware of where he's going. The TARDIS had sought somewhere that suited his mood, and it had done well. The city is grimy and dim and teeming with a million kinds of life. He looks up as he reaches a dead end, and sees the doorway ahead. The quadri-lingual sign which lights the alley tells him that on the other side of the door are at least eighteen species getting thoroughly pissed on inferior liquor.

Fantastic.

He pushes through to the bar past a half-dead humanoid female on a stool. Apparently she looks worse than she feels, because she wakes and mutters something rude, trying to shove him away.

"Sorry, but it's a bit crowded!" He looks at her again. Human. She's no humanoid, she's from Earth. Has it written all over her. How in the world did she get to a place like this? She turns and looks at him with huge, startled eyes. And collapses into his arms.

"Bollocks!" It's brilliant, his luck. The absolute last thing he needs is some inebriated human falling on him. He feels a momentary rage against this stupid ape woman. She's so naive, so clueless about everything that's happened in a universe that's obviously too big for her. How can she even stand to live, not understanding anything?

"Couldn't have just stayed at home, could you?" he asks her, as compassion takes over from the anger, and he hauls her outside into the cooler air. He deposits her onto the pavement and begins trying to get her to come round.

o-o-o-o-o-o-

She wakes up to see him leaning over her. Without thinking she puts her hand to his face. He's real. He can't be real. But he's real.

"Friendly, aren't we?" he asks, pulling back. His tone is derisive. The same tone he'd used when they'd first met. When he'd taken her hand, saved her from the Autons. When he'd told her to run along home like a good girl, forget she'd ever seen him. It hurts her to hear the scorn in his voice. He doesn't remember her. He'd meant everything to her, and he doesn't remember. She frowns, as she tries to sit up.

"Fucking hell!" it feels like her head is on fire. What had she been drinking? She hadn't had much, she remembers. Her vision swims again, and she turns to retch into the gutter beside her.

"There you go," he stands, brushing off his coat, "you'll be right again in no time. That blue tralthi you were drinking would've knocked out a rhino. Don't know what you thought you were doing with it." She sees him turn away. He's leaving her, lying in a gutter sick as a dog. He's leaving her.

"Doctor!" she tries to shout but it comes out as a croak.

His whole body stiffens. "How do you know who I am?" he asks with a voice like rusted nails.

It's then that it hits her. This is her Doctor, but their timelines have crossed at the wrong place. This man has never met her. Has never saved the Earth from the Nestene Consciousness. Has never held her hand as they leapt across the mud flats of Womrath, racing madly for the safety of the TARDIS.

Not yet.

How could she have forgotten, when she'd lived with it every day? Time's not a straight line for the Doctor. While Rose Tyler, hitchhiking across the galaxy, lives her life from one day to the next, the Doctor is appearing and disappearing from hundreds of places. Hundreds of times. 'Ten years ago' means nothing to him. The only time for him is 'right now'. Right now. Right now she's about to lose him again. She can't afford that. She has too many things left unsaid, too many emotions that she's kept bottled for too long. She's got another chance now, and damned if she'll let him get away again that easily.

"I- I recognized you," she stumbles over the words, trying to think of a way to keep him here without telling him the truth. She's not sure why, but she doesn't want that secret out just yet. His eyes are staring holes through her, just as she'd remembered. Her mouth goes dry.

With a sigh he kneels again beside her, "You've no idea what you're getting yourself into, human. What's your name, by the way, since you're obviously so familiar with me?"

"Rose."

"Right then, Rose. Let's get you out of the middle of the street."

o-o-o-o-o-o-


	3. Revelation

Disclaimer: I own nothing from the Doctor Who universe, and i am making no money off of anyone else's intellectual property.

"Closure"

Chapter 3: Revelation

o-o-o-o-o-o-

He seems to grow angrier as they walk. He says nothing else, after grasping her wrist to pull her to her feet, just looks back at her now and again, his frown increasing each time. Worry begins to gnaw at her gut. She's reminded of the first day she met him. She'd been afraid. He was dangerous. She can sense that again now, and it frightens her. She feels his pace quickening, and struggles to keep up with his long-legged stride.

"Are we headed for the TARDIS, then?" she asks. Her head is still spinning from the alcohol as he drags her along the deserted streets.

He turns on her, shoving her against a wall and pointing a menacing finger at her, "Stop that! Stop it. Look, I don't know who you are, or where you've come from, but you know far too much about me and my ship. I am NOT taking you to the TARDIS, because I don't trust you, alright? So we'll stop right here and you'll tell me exactly what's this game you're playing. How does that sound?"

Rose recoils, shrinking away from the venom in his voice. "I'm not playing any game. I thought you were a friend, is all."

"Usually I make it a habit only to be friends with people I know, and that's not you."

"No! So obviously I made a mistake about that!"

"Alright, so we're not friends. What are we then, Rose? What else do you know about me?"

She swallows, nearly in tears now from anger and shock. She thinks of the man she knew so well. His humour and compassion. His child-like wonder. This man is so resentful, so bitter. Was he really this way before she met him? But right now he's sneering at her, waiting for her to answer, to defend herself, "I know you travel through time. And space. I know you're alien. Not human, I mean. And your ship is the TARDIS, and it's bigger on the inside, because it's transcen- dimensionally transcendent. I know you love adventure. And you always try to help people, even when it gets you into trouble. And you hate it when I go on like this, babbling. And I know- I know you've lost your home, and you think you've got to do it all on your own now," she finishes in a tiny voice. There's an expression in his eyes that she can't read. Quizzical, and... something else.

"Where did you come from, Rose?" he asks, sounding suddenly tired, and every day of his 900 odd years. "Who brought you all the way out here, so far from home?"

She begins to tell him she's from Earth, when she realizes he already knows that. She takes a breath, and leaps.

"You did." God, she wants to hold him when he looks like that. Like the weight of the universe is on his shoulders. "You brought me here. From your future."

He turns away from her. "What future?"

She goes to him then, touching him softly on the shoulder, gently, afraid he'll flinch away. Or worse, turn his anger on her again. But he doesn't, just stands there, still as stone, his head hanging as he stares at the wet pavement beneath his feet.

"Look," she starts, unsure of how much she can say, "can we go somewhere? Talk? I know, you don't trust me, you don't know who I am. But, you're a Time Lord, right? I mean, it's not all that weird that you'd run into someone you haven't met yet. Yeah?"

This time she takes his hand. It nearly breaks her heart as she feels his long, calloused fingers slipping so easily between hers. This familiar touch, skin on skin, palm to palm. It shouldn't make her feel so much, after so long. But she can't stop the way her pulse quickens and her breath gets short. He looks up at her, at last, and she blinks away the tears that are beginning, and smiles at him. "Come on then, lead the way."

o-o-o-o-o-o-

He looks down at their hands, linked. Comfortable. He rubs a thumb experimentally over her fingers. They're not as soft as he'd expected. She's not had an easy life, this one. She's done her share of work. That comforts him, somehow, and he finally looks up to meet her eyes. "Come on then," she says, "lead the way." It's her smile that does it. She smiles at him and he can't help but trust her. He'd suspected the truth when she'd begun telling him what she knew. But her smile has something in it. It's the smile of a Companion.

He nods once, and begins to walk, her small hand still clasped in his, until they reach the residential section of the city. He spots a crumbling bench in the remains of a park, a flat featureless square covered in litter and refuse. It's dark here, he notices. A few streetlamps loom overhead, cracked and unlit. At least it will be quiet.

"I'm sorry," he blurts, surprising her as much as himself. But he means it. He'd regretted his outburst as soon as he'd seen the hurt in her eyes. He tries to continue, and realizes he's run out of words. Wanting for anything better to do, he sits beside her on the bench, feeling it shift beneath his weight.

"It's alright," she says, and grins cheekily at him. "You've always been a bit moody."

He turns and stares at her, a strange sort of lightness growing in his chest. "I think I ought to resent that."

She's still grinning, but there are tears sliding down her cheeks. "God, Doctor, I've missed you!" She wipes at her eyes with the back of her hand. "You were so- Shit. I shouldn't- I mean, it's not good to talk to you about it, about you, on account of it's your future and all. Right?"

He wants to say no. He wants to tell her to talk to him, to tell him what to do, to make him promises that there's more to the rest of his life than this bleak despair he's felt for so long. He wants to know where he's going, and whether he'll make a difference there. But she's right. Whatever she could tell him, there's the chance that the telling could send it all awry. He's seen enough of the chaos caused by distorted time lines. He'll be content to let his own flow naturally. He's got to be. And suddenly he feels the tiniest spark of hope. This bright, lovely woman, he'll mean something to her someday. Could be there's a future to look forward to after all.

"Rose." He tastes the word on his lips, and she looks up at him, hazel eyes bright and expectant. "Just, tell me. Is it alright? Is it going to be alright?"

"You showed me the stars, Doctor. You showed me everything." Her hand touches his face again, and this time he doesn't pull away. Emotions begin to stir within him, as her fingers slide across his cheek, emotions he'd forgotten he'd ever had. The aching emptiness recedes, abates, and he shuts his eyes, savoring the feelings as she presses her lips to his.

o-o-o-o-o-o-


End file.
